Monica+GonzalezLBF

** By September 21st, the EDTEC 670 and their study subjects had submitted 243 responses to the Learning, Boredom and Fun Survey. Each respondent was asked to describe both a boring and a fun learning event which they had experienced during their lives. The data was reviewed using the survey monkey report tools, and was also downloaded to Excel for further data analysis. As I feel uncomfortable and lost just looking at the data obtained from the survey without having a question in mind, I aspire to formulate working hypothesis. To start with, I questioned if there was an apparent correlation between the individuals level of education and their ability to articulate a learning event as fun. From the data I learnt that educational attainment does not seem to be determinant in the perception of learning events as boring or fun. What Makes Learning Boring? ** The Boring experiences imply few types of stimuli based on listening (92.2%), watching (70.7%) and remembering (65.7%). A major feature of Boring learning entails sitting still (73.4%). Boring learning does not require interaction with learners (68.7%), with instructor (68.6%) or with technology (55%) The level of educational attainment does not seem to be determinant in the perception of learning events as boring or fun. I compared students who have at least a bachelor degree, some graduate education and graduate education with those that did not. There was little apparent difference between their learning perceptions according to the categories presented in the following table: ** students ** || ** University students ** || ** Non-university ** ** students ** ||
 * Executive Summary
 * ** Stimuli ** |||| ** Boring experiences ** |||| ** Fun experiences ** ||
 * ^  || ** University students ** || ** Non-university **
 * Listen || 92.0%  ||  92.4%  ||  89.7%  ||  85.1%  ||
 * Watch || 68.0%  ||  75.8%  ||  84.8%  ||  80.6%  ||
 * Interact with other learners || 81.0%  ||  12.1%  ||  72.2%  ||  60.6%  ||
 * Interact with instructor || 7.9%  ||  20.0%  ||  74.0%  ||  56.3%  ||
 * Interact with some artifact or technology || 17.4%  ||  16.9%  ||  58.3%  ||  47%  ||
 * Sit still || 74.8%  ||  73.1%  ||  16.4%  ||  12.3%  ||
 * Move around || 0.7%  ||  4.5%  ||  47.6%  ||  48.5%  ||
 * Perform or present || 4.7%  ||  13.8%  ||  65.5%  ||  47.8%  ||
 * Remember || 62.0%  ||  73.8%  ||  72.6%  ||  57.2%  ||
 * Think creatively || 4.7%  ||  19.7%  ||  69%  ||  52.2%  ||
 * Think critically || 16.0%  ||  27.3%  ||  73.1%  ||  52.2%  ||

The boring scenarios were often described as formal lectures. However there were three interesting descriptions of boring online learning which have one feature in common. The content materials were digitalized instead of virtualized. For instance: Power Point slides were provided where the learner only had to read them with little dialogue with the instructor. In two cases these experiences took place more than 15 years ago, when distance education mimicked the classroom. What Makes Learning Fun? ** It appears that fun learning integrates all types of stimuli. The lowest percentage attained is for the moving around criterion (48.17%). The rest of the “stimuli” obtain over 50%. Fun learning does not require sitting still (15.2%). It requires interaction with learners (68.7%), interaction with instructor (68.6%) and interaction with some artifact or technology (55%). Therefore, it does not matter what is the learning modality: online or classroom, the instructor plays a crucial role in making the experience fun or boring Fun learning requires thinking creatively (63%) and critically (66%), and it often implies performing or presenting (59.9%). Gender does not appear to affect the perceptions of individuals concerning learning experiences as classified as interesting or boring, as is evident from the following table. Motivating, appealing, attention grabbing, remarkable, enthralling, mesmerizing, captivating, absorbing, intriguing, beguiling, alluring, spellbinding were adjectives which were used to pick up Fun learning in the survey. ** Implications ** It appears that the level of education does not determine whether a learning event is fun or boring. Rather, what does appear to be crucial is the level of interaction between learner and instructor, learner and technology and learner and learners. I am not surprised to find out that interaction is a defining ingredient of fun learning which creates a challenge for distance learning. Fortunately this aspect has been attended by creating solutions for online interaction, for example social networks such as facebook, Hi5, flickr, blogs and wikis. Instructional designers should include these tools in their designs, to ensure that online students feel accompanied.
 * ** Stimuli ** |||| ** Boring experiences ** |||| ** Fun experiences ** ||
 * ^  || ** Female ** || ** Male ** || ** Female **  || ** Male **  ||
 * Listen || 93.0%  ||  90.6%  ||  89.1%  ||  87.8%  ||
 * Watch || 73.4%  ||  65.5%  ||  85.9%  ||  80.5%  ||
 * Interact with other learners || 7.1%  ||  12.9%  ||  70.9%  ||  65.4%  ||
 * Interact with instructor || 9.2%  ||  15.5%  ||  68.2%  ||  69.6%  ||
 * Interact with some artifact or technology || 16.4%  ||  19.0%  ||  51.2%  ||  59.3%  ||
 * Sit still || 79.4%  ||  65.9%  ||  15.5%  ||  13.8%  ||
 * Move around || 0%  ||  4.8%  ||  50.4%  ||  43.9%  ||
 * Perform or present || 5.5%  ||  10.7%  ||  55.5%  ||  65.9%  ||
 * Remember || 63.6%  ||  67.9%  ||  66.7%  ||  76.8%  ||
 * Think creatively || 7.7%  ||  11.9%  ||  67.2%  ||  58.5%  ||
 * Think critically || 19.2%  ||  20.2%  ||  65.6%  ||  69.5%  ||